


Home Also I Cannot Go: Ficlets and Fragments

by soonanemone (elle_stone)



Series: Home Also I Cannot Go [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Family, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25540855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/soonanemone
Summary: Ficlets and partial scenes written in theHome Also'verse.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Series: Home Also I Cannot Go [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850707
Comments: 43
Kudos: 38





	1. Phone Call

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote some random scenes and partial scenes on tumblr a few years ago, and I never transferred them to AO3. In some cases, I thought I might make them into full-sized fics at some point. Others are just short little writing exercises, and I didn't see any reason to cross-post them.
> 
> I'm putting them here now so that they're all in one place, easier to find, and easier to read. They're posted in the order I wrote them, NOT the order in which the events occur.
> 
> None of these scenes overlap with anything in HAICG itself. They all take place in the future, and are a little bit spoiler-y, in the sense that they reveal my thoughts on what ultimately happens to Kirk, Spock, and the rest. The timeline is just a rough guess, though.
> 
> Obviously, none of these will make sense if you're not familiar with _Home Also_. These ficlets don't feature explicit mpreg, but that story does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written June 29, 2016.

He wakes up to utter darkness, the light of two moons through the window, and a steady, persistent beeping sound. That’s what has woken him. And there. There it is again. And again.

Eventually, he forces himself to get up. He grabs his robe, pulls it tight around himself, rubs at his eyes with the back of his thumb, as if this would help, and commands on the lights. Now his room is too bright, disorienting. He sits down at his desk and tells his computer to let the connection through.

And there, staring back at him, is Selen. No surprise. He has that familiar excited, near manic look about him, but it drops after only a moment, expression and shoulders falling at once. “Sevin!” he says. “Were you asleep?”

“It’s two in the morning, yes, I was asleep.” He sounds annoyed, because he is, but there’s a forced patience to his tone, too. Selen isn’t rude enough to call in the middle of the night on purpose, but he is oblivious enough to, and this, Sevin tries to tell himself, isn’t really his fault.

“Oh.” He’s tapping his fingers against the table, just out of sight. “Is it? I’m sorry. You’re on—”

“Rigel Eight. For six months.”

“Right, sorry.” Selen’s eyes flick off to the side, like he’s thinking, and Sevin is just about to ask him what this is about when he says, abruptly, “I thought you were on Earth. I forgot. Do you want to go back to sleep? This isn’t important.”

He almost says yes. Because he does want to go back to sleep. He has to be up early in the morning; he’s busy; he has things to do. But the way Selen is looking at him, the way he’s not quite able to keep still, and Sevin just knows there’s no other answer he can really give. So he just sighs, and shakes his head. “No. No it’s fine. This about your work?”

Selen’s whole body seems to buoy up again and he grins, nods quickly. In moments like these, there’s still something of the little boy in him. “Yeah. Yes. Listen…”


	2. Magazine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written July 15, 2016.

An Earth magazine is running a small piece on T’Prina, the first Vulcan born after that planet’s destruction, as part of a series of articles remembering the thirtieth anniversary of the Tragedy. (Another, on the Enterprise crew, talks about Sevin’s parents in depth, but he saves that one for later.) The article is nothing too deep, but the picture that runs with it, of T’Prina looking calm and controlled at her home in New Vulcan’s capital city, is nice enough. She’ll appreciate it. It’s exactly the image of herself that she likes to portray, especially to Terrans.

The article says that T’Prina works in the Vulcan government, without doing a very good job of explaining the interplay between the separate, but connected, governmental and religious leadership structure on New Vulcan. That will drive her up the wall, Sevin thinks, and smiles a little. It also mentions that she plays several traditional Vulcan instruments, which is sort of true–she plays them, but not very well. An insignificant detail, perhaps. And it notes the way she answers questions during the interview, how she switches between and sometimes blends Standard, English, and Vulcan with ease.

It’s true that this is one of T’Prina’s habits, a not uncommon one at least in certain Vulcan circles now. It’s also true she could have toned that habit down, if she’d really wanted to. The article makes a big deal of this quirk, tries to play it into some larger theme about the future of New Vulcan, and perhaps of the Federation itself, but Sevin just shakes his head: it’s a reach. At least, it’s a reach the way this reporter is trying to spin it. T’Prina does not code switch because she is a mix of cultures, traditions, heritages. She does it because she is smart, sharp, because she’s used to switching registers, to being sometimes a little more accessible to humans and other aliens, sometimes a little less. But language aside she’s pure Vulcan, through and through.

(Funny in a way how they’re mirror images: Sevin born on Vulcan, but his earliest memories formed on Earth, his genetics a strange jumble and his formative years spent in the otherland of space; T’Prina born on Earth but raised on New Vulcan, and her heritage as Vulcan as Vulcans can get.)

No, if the magazine wanted a hybrid, it should have gone to him. (They have gone to him, probably; he’s gotten more than his fair share of interview requests, turns most of the down without thought.) He’s been aware of his other-ness his whole life, and came to own it in his adolescence; he created his sense of self around it so that his very identity is his multiplicity. He is not like his father. Spock assimilated his humanity into his Vulcan identity, so that the second is like the deep core of the first; he is a proud Vulcan man in every aspect, in appearance and speech, habit and belief–but a proud Vulcan man who spent his career proudly serving on human-dominated starships, proudly married to a human man, and never acknowledging the contradiction. Sevin respects that choice. But he can’t live that way himself.

Forget 2500 words in a Terran magazine, someone could write a whole book about his identity, find all sorts of allegories and metaphors in there.

And of course if someone really wanted a symbol of confused but beautiful combination, of the messiness of identity in the post-Tragedy world, the best case study out there is Selen. Selen is the most hybrid being Sevin knows, and given his line of work, that’s saying something.


	3. Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written July 22 and 31, and August 30, 2016.

Vulcan had no moons but New Vulcan, like Earth, has one. It’s already visible, full and pale in the dusky sky of early evening, hovering over the capital skyline in the distance, when Sevin steps off the shuttle after a long day of traveling through space. He adjusts his bag over his shoulder, stares up at that moon, then takes a deep breath of clear, warm, desert air. It’s nothing like the air in San Francisco, heavy and humid, and nothing like the air on the _Enterprise_ , sharp and artificial, and yet when he closes his eyes he feels, not nostalgia nor a sense of being home, not quite, but something tugging at an unacknowledged _instinct_ nonetheless.

A strange feeling.

He leaves the docking platform and heads out to the main road leading into the city, where Selen picks him up a few minutes later, just as they’d planned.

*

“I am glad to see that you have arrived safely,” Sevin’s father tells him, his face flickering out for a moment over their shaky connection, then refocusing again. Sevin is using Selen’s computer, which is high-tech and new, so he figures it must be a problem on the other end. Or just an inevitability, given the physical distance between them.

“Safe and sound,” he answers. “The shuttle even got here early. Are you and Dad all set to go tomorrow?”

“Yes,” his father says, by which he means ‘of course.’ It’s true it was a dumb question. But they haven’t seen each other in person in a while and Sevin is, perhaps, more excited than he would admit to spend time with his parents again. “How is Selen?”

“Oh, you know, about as you’d expect: nervous with pre-wedding jitters and trying to hide it.”

Spock sighs, a weariness in the sound that Sevin knows no one will see a speck of tomorrow or for the rest of the week, and a small furrow creases between his brows. “When you say he is ‘hiding’–”

“Father, he’s okay.” Sevin puts up his hands, like this could stop his father’s train of thought cold. “He’s in control. He knows the techniques better than you think he does.” The word ‘control’ he picks carefully, out of several related terms, and perhaps it’s too strong, but his father needs this reassurance now.

“That is not what I meant.”

“It’s part of what you meant.”

Spock gives him a look that would be just as at home on his own father’s face, a uniquely Vulcan combination of skepticism, disapproval, and defiance. But he doesn’t argue, and Sevin doesn’t share his observation. He has the feeling Spock wouldn’t appreciate it. Instead, he just raises his eyebrows, and adds, “It’s not going to be like last time.”

“The wedding ceremony, or the marriage?” Spock counters.

He would never ask this question in front of Selen, of course, and Sevin isn’t even sure he would be as blunt if Jim were in the room with them. “Both,” he answers. “A lot has changed, you know.” Spock does know, he can’t argue with that, and Sevin takes the opportunity to change the subject: “Where’s Dad? I want to say hi to him before I let you go.”

“He is currently trying to decide if he should shave off his beard before our arrival on New Vulcan.”

This image, his dad staring at his face in the mirror, contemplating his facial hair, delaying the moment he’ll have to shave it off, makes Sevin smile. “And what do you think?” he asks.

Spock quirks up his eyebrow, so Sevin knows this has been a mini-saga between them and that his father has been very amused by it, and replies, “I told him that as we are attending a traditional Vulcan ceremony and as Vulcans do not generally grow facial hair, it would be more appropriate for him to appear clean-shaven.”

“I can’t believe he grew a beard in the first place,” Sevin answers. “It’s not very…Starfleet.” It is, in fact, probably against the Fleet’s rules, if Jim Kirk hadn’t found his way through and around and over pretty much every rule there was.

“He claims that he will shave it off permanently when Starfleet command issues him another ship.”

“So…never.” Admirals, after all, don’t fly.

Spock just shrugs, as if he weren’t so sure of that. After everything he’s seen, Sevin supposes he’s earned that skepticism.

“Well, do you think you can tear him away from… himself for a moment?” Sevin asks, and Spock nods, an _I’ll see what I can do_ gesture.

Then he leans back in his chair, and calls out, into the apartment behind him, “Jim! Sevin wishes to speak to you.”

A short pause follows, then Sevin hears a familiar voice, still from far off, say, “I thought I heard Vulcan.” And then, a moment later, his dad appears over Spock’s shoulder, leaning forward into view. Jim Kirk looks younger than his years would suggest, and he has the distinguished air of a senior officer even in his civilian clothes, even against the domestic background of his home. The beard probably contributes to the image, though, Sevin’s not sure. But when he grins, something of the boyish returns to his face.

“So you got in all right? How’s everything look?”

He means, among other things _how is Selen?_ but he won’t use quite those words. They would make him sound worried, instead of excited. Knowing his dad, Sevin would probably say he is a little of both, the first emotion skimming, an ill fit, under the second.

“Fine,” Sevin answers, gliding easily into Standard again. “I arrived just before dinner. I haven’t really done much or seen anyone yet.” He lets himself trail off. It’s hard to know what to say, hard to describe the sensation that always hits him when he comes to New Vulcan. “The weather’s nice. Pretty much perfect for a New Vulcan spring. Selen and T’Para are outside now, enjoying it.”


	4. Iowa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written August 15, 18, and 24, and September 11 and 24, 2016.

“Father,” Sevin starts, like an announcement, and vaults over the arm of the couch to land, quite gracefully, cross-legged next to Spock. He’s in the middle of reading a letter, but he glances up anyway, not bothered by the interruption. When Sevin goes on, “Father, I want to talk to you about Iowa,” he sets his PADD aside on the coffee table, crosses his arms, and replies:

“What about Iowa?”

“I want a chance to convince you that we should go to Iowa for the New Year.” He sounds very serious and very ready to make his case, so Spock just sighs, and tells him to go ahead, and doesn’t give any indication that no convincing needs to be done here.

Even getting an audience surprises his son for a moment—“Really? Okay, great.”—but he recovers quickly. He’s twisted his legs together and has wrapped his hands around his ankles, an Earth teenager’s slouching version of a meditation pose, but doesn’t seem to notice his position.

“First, I have never been to Iowa, even though half my family is from there. I’m fifteen, and I haven’t even been to the Mid-West. I don’t think I should be denied this opportunity to learn about my heritage.” His eyes flick to Spock’s face, waiting for some sort of reaction, and his own expression not quite as inscrutable as he probably would like to believe that it is.

“A fair point,” Spock answers, and inclines his head, a sign for Sevin to go on.

“Second,” he continues, “we spent the New Year in San Francisco last year. And that was fun, having the crew over like during the mission, but almost no one is in the city this year, so why should we stay? Also, Selen is older now and I think he’s ready to travel and see a bit more of this planet. Third,” he sits up straighter, his pose now mostly Vulcan, only slightly slouchy teen, “Dad hasn’t been to Iowa since before he left for the Academy. I think it would be good for him to go back—psychologically.”

Spock arches an eyebrow. “Psychologically?”

“Yes.” He holds Spock’s stare for a long moment, as if not quite certain, then looks away to say, “And finally, Sam invited us. And it would be rude to say no for no reason.”

Spock lets the next silence drag on as long as he dares, watching as Sevin waits, confident and curious, and then announces, “I would be in favor of spending the holiday in Iowa.”

“You would? Really?”

“Yes.” He picks up his PADD again. “However, I am not the parent you need to persuade.”

*

Spock does not say anything, or even look up, until he feels the other side of the bed depress with the weight of another body. Then he mentions, casually, that “Sevin is quite insistent that we travel to Iowa for the holiday.”

He hears no answers, doesn’t immediately expect one, and when he glances down he sees Jim lying next to him on his back, staring up.

“He is?”

Spock sets his reading on the bedside table, and slides down until he is lying on his side, half-propped against the pillows. “Yes,” he answers, as Jim’s hand starts to slide up under the edge of his shirt, over his stomach and side. (The shirt is an old Academy sweatshirt and it is not, technically, actually his.) “You know that he has always been particularly curious about your side of the family.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jim says, and the words come out a sigh, his eyes closing briefly and perhaps despite himself. “What about you?” He slides a bit closer. “Do you want to go?”

There is a quick and simple answer to this, and not only because three full days have passed since Sam sent his invitation. But Spock takes a moment before he replies, anyway. He just focuses on Jim’s hand, curling around his hip. He wonders if his silence will read as hesitation, or just thoughtfulness, a gathering of words.

“I do,” he admits at last. “You have never been as quick to discuss your life in Iowa as I have to tell you about Vulcan.”

Jim raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s true. You’ll only talk to me about Vulcan after some prodding or when you’re in a certain mood.”

“And there is no mood and no amount of ‘prodding’ that will convince you to discuss Iowa,” Spock counters easily. “Why are you so reluctant to spend the New Year with your family?”

He didn’t expect an easy answer to his question and none is forthcoming. Instead, Jim ducks his head, slides down further on the bed, and tucks his nose in against Spock’s neck, presses his body close against him. Spock wraps one arm around him, and traces his fingers down the bare skin of his back out of habit. He waits and is patient.

“It’s not Riverside,” he says finally. “It’s going to Riverside as hey-that’s-George-Kirk’s-son, isn’t-he-a-starship-captain-too?. It’s dealing with the small town attitudes again. It’s _staying in my old house_. It’s spending all that time with Sam and his family.”

“I enjoy Sam’s company,” Spock answers, into the slight pause that follows.

“So do I,” Jim says, pulling back just a little and looking up. “But it’s a lot of people in a very small house. For two weeks. That place was crowded when it was just me, Sam, and Frank. I can’t imagine it with four adults, a teenager, a five year old, and a thirteen-month-old.”

Spock considers for a moment, then answers, “Perhaps it felt small when you were younger because of your difficult relationship with your stepfather. A different group of people could produce a different impression on you.”

“‘Difficult relationship’ is an understatement,” Jim reminds him, and then sighs, and rolls over onto his back. He keeps one hand on Spock’s hip, though, and the other, crushed between them, against his leg. Another long moment passes, and Spock does not rush him. “You really want to go to Iowa, don’t you?” he asks, then, and Spock inclines his head.

“It has been sixteen years,” he says. “And I saw very little of your hometown on my only visit.”

Jim smirks up at him. “The inside of my apartment was the most important stop on the Riverside grand tour anyway,”

“As always, I appreciate your sense of humor,” Spock replies, dry, but it makes Jim grin. 

“Okay,” he says, with a deep sigh, staring up at the ceiling now as a more serious expression returns to his face. “I can already see I’m going to be outvoted on this.”

Spock can’t tell if he’s just pensive now, or sad; he seems to be looking much farther away than just the blank way in front of him, perhaps to Iowa, perhaps to the past itself. And Spock feels guilty. He cannot understand the impulse to avoid one’s place of origin. His own relationship to Vulcan may be complicated, but if he were given the chance to see it even one more time, he would take it without hesitation. Yet he knows he cannot impose his own thoughts and emotions on Jim.

“Our family is not one in which all votes are equally weighted, at least not in a matter such as this,” he answers, slowly. “Does the idea of this trip truly cause you such… anxiety?”

“I wouldn’t say anxiety. Wariness, maybe. I know it’s irrational and immature.” He flicks his gaze over; to see Spock’s face at this angle requires that he widen his eyes and tilts his head slightly back, and it makes him look younger, like someone who has seen much less than he has seen. “I’m not going to say no. It means too much to Sevin, and to Sam. And to you. And who knows–maybe it would be a good idea for me to exorcise some demons.”

“A phrase I assume you are using figuratively,” Spock replies, and then, more quietly and seriously, “You are not just George Kirk’s son, Jim. If those you used to know in Riverside still cannot see that, they are people you can safely leave behind. Those who truly matter know your real worth.”

Jim stares up at him for a long moment, the sort of stare that might once have convinced Spock he’d said the wrong thing after all, then holds out two fingers for a kiss. “Spock, don’t ever let anyone else know what a sweet talker you are in private.”


	5. Sehlat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written October 21, 2016.

Sevin’s traveled to just about every type of planet there is, faced every sort of climate a Vulcan or a human could hope to survive, but he’s still not prepared for the shock of traveling cross country, from a New England winter to a California one, one world, one universe to another in a matter of hours. Maybe this strange feeling isn’t from the chill wet air, after the dry, sharp cold, or the clear sidewalks after the snow piles overlaying old piles of multi-colored leaves; maybe he feels this way because he’s coming home.

He’s sitting on the floor, his back against the side of his bed, reading one of his father’s books while he plays his dad’s music, louder than even his dad would let him play it, if he were home–but not loud enough to bother the neighbors, because he’s not dumb. The book is a novel set in pre-reform Vulcan and he’s pretty astounded that his father even owns it–perhaps he should avoid mentioning that he found it. Fascinating stuff, though. It’s weird to be reading something that isn’t for school, but he supposes that that’s what the semester break is for.

Selen is on the bed behind him, marching Sevin’s stuffed sehlat across the bedspread and making inscrutable, allegedly sehlat-like, noises. (Technically, Sevin gave him the toy when he went away to school, but he still considers it his, in a sense. There’s so little of the physical from his childhood left, it’s hard not to want to hold on to what he has. Even the things he’s too old for, which is pretty much all of it.)

“Sevin?”

“Mmm–yes?”

He swipes to the next page. The warrior is preparing for battle…

“Were sehlats real?”

Sevin half turns, slight frown creasing between his eyes, though Selen looks utterly unconcerned. It was an innocent question. He’s humming a little as he makes the sehlat roll over.

“Yeah,” Sevin answers slowly. “They were real.” He’s about to ask why Selen wants to know when he’s interrupted:

“Have you ever seen one?”

He nods, turning now so he’s no longer leaning against the bed, legs crossed in meditation pose and the PADD he was reading from on the floor. “When I was really little.” Then he adds, “Father had one, when he was a kid.”

“Like as a pet?”

“Mhmmm.” 

Selen is walking the sehlat over to him now, and Sevin leans his arms on the edge of the bed and watches it. 

“We should have a pet.”

Sevin just laughs at that, not meanly, and answers, “I don’t think you should set your hopes on that, smaller one. Maybe Hikaru can hook you up with a cool plant, though.”

Selen’s still thinking about the sehlat, and doesn’t pick up the plant idea. “What did they look like, really?” he asks.

“Really really?”

“REALLY really.”

Sevin smiles fondly and then carefully takes the toy from Selen’s hands. He sits it up so it’s standing on all four feet, and positions it so it’s facing Selen with its long fangs on full display. “Pretty much like this, but bigger. **Way** bigger. You could ride on one.”

Selen’s eyes are wide and he’s staring at the stuffed animal as if it really were a living, breathing full-size sehlat, miraculously finding space to stand next to him on the bed. “Wow,” he whispers, awed. “But–were they mean?”

“No,” Sevin answers, then pauses, considering. He’s half-sure his father wants Dr. McCoy to think sehlats are the fiercest of animals, and it’s possible that, when he insinuated as much, it was the truth. But probably not. And Bones isn’t here right now. “No,” he says again, more decisively. “I’m pretty sure they were good-hearted and sweet. Even with the teeth.” Then he sends the sehlat rearing back on its feet, and launches it at Selen, its toy arms grabbing for him in a big sehlat-hug.


	6. Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written October 31, 2016.

Sevin’s too old to go trick-or-treating seriously, but he’s not too old to go trick-or-treating ironically and anyway, this is something Selen should definitely experience.

Thomas is almost finished drawing whiskers on their new lion cub when the computer starts buzzing with an incoming video call. Sevin bounds across the room, turns it on, and before his dad has a chance to say a word, he’s asking, “Hey, can I borrow your Academy sweatshirt?”

“Asking favors already?” Jim retorts, but he’s smiling despite himself. “We’ve only been connected for five seconds. And what do you need my shirt for?”

“Thomas’s costume. He’s going as an overworked Starfleet Cadet.” Finally sliding into the chair in front of the computer, he shrugs, and adds, “Basically he’s dressed like himself but with dark circles under his eyes but we need the shirt to get the full effect.”

“So you’re all going out for Halloween?” his dad asks–awfully slow on the uptake for the smartest Captain in the ‘Fleet. “And where is Selen going to be? With Admiral Pike?”

Admiral Pike is nominally looking after both boys but Sevin’s pretty sure he’s old enough for real adult responsibility, even when his parents are gone for over a week on Starfleet business. Even when that week includes Halloween, perhaps the best Earth holiday of the year.

“No, he’s coming with us,” Sevin answers. “We’re taking him trick-or-treating.”

His dad gives him an unreadable look that might be incredulous, amused, or wary–or some combination of the three. When he speaks, it’s with his Captain’s voice. “That’s a plan you should have run past me or your father first.”

“Are you going to veto it?”

“Even when he’s the cutest little lion in the city?” Thomas adds, sneaking up into the video screen frame behind Sevin, Selen in full lion costume balanced on his hip.

“In the galaxy, please,” Victoria’s voice calls out from the next room, where she’s sitting on the couch engaged in the time-consuming activity of lacing up her boots.

“I’m not vetoing anything,” Jim assures them. “But you’re going to tell me where you’re going, you’re going to be home early–and if you’re taking him, this better not be an excuse to–”

“Dad, we’re not taking a two year old to a secret rave or anything,” Sevin interrupts. “We promise. So can Thomas borrow your shirt?”

Jim sighs, then leans back and calls out behind him: “Spock, Sevin and his friends want your Academy sweatshirt for trick-or-treating. Also our son is a lion cub now.”

It’s the second sentence, probably, that brings Sevin’s father striding into view. He takes in the scene: Thomas with his exaggerated eye make up, Selen in his lion costume, Sevin’s expectant face. It’s actually a nerve-wracking moment, waiting for him to put a simple, authoritative stop to their plans–as Sevin, despite himself, is half-sure for a moment that he will.

But Spock only raises an eyebrow, and says, “I think the people you visit will find your costumes somewhat obscure.”

“I’m an overworked Cadet,” Thomas answers, “but I need your shirt to pull the look together, Mr. Spock.”

“It is not my shirt, it is my husband’s, but you are welcome to it.”

“Thank you. It will come back in one piece, I promise.” He gestures with his head over his shoulder. “V’s going as a fairy. Basically herself but with wings,” he adds, in a faux-conspiratorial tone.

“I heard that,” his sister’s voice calls back. “And Sevin’s going as himself with a hat so….”

Sevin rolls his eyes, as his dad furrows his brow, and his father admits, “I do find your costume the least clear.”

“Oh come on, it’s not that hard!” He picks up the gray beanie he’d dug out of his closet that afternoon, and pulls it on, low over his ears and forehead. “I’m going as a human!”


	7. At the Academy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written August 29, 2020, for senseofenterprise on tumblr, who requested some Spock and Sevin during Spock's time at the Academy.

The cafe down the street from Spock’s apartment plays recorded Terran music during the day, and hosts live musical performances in the evening. Spock has been to three such concerts: one by himself, one with a group of second-year Cadets, and one, last weekend, with Cadet Lawrence. This last event he is still turning over, carefully considering, in the back of his mind. Cadet Lawrence is a human, blond and blue-eyed, with an easy, lop-sided smile. He’s in the Engineering program, and his favorite topics of conversation are the latest developments in transporter technology, and the history of Federation space travel. Spock has seen history books mixed in among his textbooks, when they study together in the library, which they started doing only because they both enjoy the same room on the third floor. They both like to sit beneath the round window that always lets in a peculiar light, green-tinted as it streams through the leaves of the tree outside.

Another reason they study together is because Spock quite enjoys Cadet Lawrence’s company. Once, three days before the evening together at the cafe, Spock dedicated several hours to teaching Cadet Lawrence how to write simple phrases in Vulcan. His hand was so unsteady, Spock had to help him grip his stylus, to trace out the exact curls and circles of his native script. Only when he was done did he realize how closely they were sitting, and the unfamiliar, soft, human expression that had taken the place of Cadet Lawrence’s usual smile.

None of which is worth thinking about now. He has his Astrophysics reading and his weak, Terran tea, and all he needs is to focus his thoughts on his work again. Somehow, he had found himself staring at a row of maps on the wall across from him, depicting the capital cities of the four original Federation planets. His own home city is second from the left. Cadet Lawrence has never left Earth before—"Never even been on a shuttle before I came to San Francisco,“ he’d said, grinning, glancing over at Spock like he was expecting him to laugh.

From the chair next to him, a small hand reaches out, and taps at the edge of his PADD. "Father! Time to work!”

Spock raises his eyebrows, a show of amusement for his son, who is staring at him with the most serious of expressions. Sevin is balanced on top of an unsteady pile of pillows, in order to be tall enough to reach the tabletop, where he has arranged his own version of work: his toy spaceship and three large plastic blocks, out of which he has created a complicated, but inscrutable game. He’s still holding the spaceship in his other hand.

“I appreciate how you keep me focused, small one,” Spock answers, and gently moves his hand out of the way. Then he turns back to his reading again, but his boy won’t be deterred.

“When will we go to the park?” Sevin asks. Usually, he enjoys the cafe: all of the people, mostly Starfleet Cadets and officers, chattering in different languages all around them; the music; the interesting maps and other artwork on the walls; and especially the light fixtures, which hang like crystals at intervals along the ceiling, and never cease to amaze and delight him. He is also fond of the baristas, who think he is the most adorable little boy in the galaxy. But they’ve been here a long afternoon, and Spock has promised his son an evening at the playground after he has finished his reading.

“Soon,” he answers, which is close enough to the truth.

“When?”

Spock sighs. Then he leans in close, as if he were sharing a secret, and says quietly, “When I finish this chapter.”

“Then you’ll tell me about it?”

He nods. “Yes. And you will tell me about what you have been doing.”

Just as they always do. Sevin doesn’t understand anything that Spock shares of his studies, and Spock doesn’t understand most of what Sevin describes of his games, but they enjoy each other’s interest. That is enough.

He has managed to read another three pages, enough to bring him back into a proper, focused, studious mindset again, when an unexpected noise rises above the general background hum of conversation and twenty-second century acoustic guitar, and rouses him again. This time, it is his name. “Cadet Spock,” someone says, from right in front of him and somewhat above, and he looks up, briefly startled to see Captain Pike standing next to his chair. He’s holding a to-go cup of coffee, and looks like he stopped abruptly, as if he too were caught by surprise.

“Captain,” Spock answers. “Good afternoon. I did not notice you passing by.”

“No, I can see you’re busy. I almost didn’t notice you, either.” His eyes flick briefly to Sevin, then back to Spock again. Spock can feel the tips of his ears turning hot. He bluffed his way into an advanced level course taught by Captain Pike during his second semester at the Academy, unwilling to take the chance that it would not be offered again, and by the end of the year had convinced the Captain to supervise an additional independent study course for him. This would allow him to get Command track credit, despite being in the Science division. _Hoping to make Captain one day, Spock?_ Pike had asked, in a tone that Spock did not know how to read: friendly, and fond, but slightly teasing too.

_I merely wish to expand my understanding of Starfleet as much as possible, Sir._

_All right. Well, you know First Officers come from every division, not just Command—_

It had felt like a promise, some potential inside him that not even he could see, suddenly laid bare, and he’d blushed at that suggestion too. He’d felt a certain pride filling his chest, squaring his shoulders.

Yet for all their work together, he’d never once mentioned his son.

“So, who’s this little guy?” Pike asks now, gesturing with his coffee cup to Sevin. Pike is smiling yet another variant of human smile now, one Spock recognizes well: the expression adults always direct toward his child, to show that they are trustworthy. Sevin is staring back at him, wide-eyed and silent.

“This is Sevin,” Spock answers, and on a whim, picks the boy up and settles him on his lap. “My son.”

Perhaps he has already hypothesized as much, but Pike lets only the slightest surprise show. His eyebrows rise briefly, and his mouth opens, but he turns the expression back into a smile smoothly enough. “Sevin,” he repeats. “And how old are you, Sevin?”

“He’s two and a half,” Spock answers, when the boy himself doesn’t speak. He’s still watching Pike with steady curiosity, but seems to consider himself no more than an observer to the conversation.

“And shy?” Pike asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Mmm. Well, I can’t say I blame him for that.” He turns his gaze back to Spock, nods once, and adds, “Nice running into you both. I’ll see you on Friday?”

“As always, Sir.”

Before he leaves, Pike waves goodbye to Sevin, a small wave for a small boy. Then, when he sees Sevin reaching out for his hand, he holds it out, a shade of uncertainty now across his expression that Spock cannot dispel quickly enough. He knows what Sevin wants to do. But he has no time to pull him back or to give any sort of warning a human would understand, before Sevin has placed his palm on Captain Pike’s palm.

A strange jolt passes across his features, only a second, there and gone and in its wake, a confused frown, the slightest parting of his lips. Pike jerks his hand back again, and Spock pulls Sevin close against his chest. “I apologize,” he says quickly. “He—he is still leaning to control his telepathic abilities.”

Pike is staring down at his hand, as if expecting some physical aftermath there on his skin. He looks up at Spock’s words, and his frown deepens. “Oh,” he answers, faint and slightly dazed. “Is that what that was. I have to say, Spock,” and his tone lightens again, perhaps with effort, perhaps with that innate ability humans seem to have, to rebound quickly from the surprise of any new discovery. “I have to say, I’ve never experienced anything quite like that before.”

“I assure you, he was not trying to read your thoughts, only to share—”

“It’s all right.” Pike smiles again. “That’s a bright little boy you have there. I hope I see you both around again.” He waves once more, and Spock offers a faint goodbye, and then Captain Pike is disappearing again into the crowd.

Only then does Spock let out a breath he did not realize he was holding. “We have discussed this, small one,” he says, and hugs Sevin closer again. “We—”

“Don’t use telepathy with humans,” Sevin finishes. “I’m sorry, Father. I just wanted—”

“I know. I understand.” The temptation is great sometimes for him, too: a shortcut to communication with these strange, emotional, confusing aliens, who remain always a mystery, even as some of what they are is part of him and his son, too. “I understand,” he says again, and presses a kiss to the top of Sevin’s head.


End file.
